Posts Tagged ‘Beltway Sniper’

The tale of the D.C. Beltway Sniper – a man and a teenage boy terrorize D.C. with a sniper rifle over several weeks – is a Sorcerer tale. A teenage boy in Alabama was going through hell, and none of the adults in his life would give him the help he needed. In his desperation, he created a demon in the form of his childhood hero: a revered uncle who had just died in Afghanistan. A demon with a Desire to protect the boy, and a Need to kill. The demon hunted down and shot the boy’s tormentor, but it didn’t end there. As more bullies and less-favourite teachers turned up dead, the boy realized that he had endangered his whole town. He tried to unsummon the demon, but it proved too strong. That’s when it kidnapped him, stole a car, and took the killing spree on the road.

The boy struggled between his fear of discovery and his fear of the murderous fiend in the shape of his uncle. He nudged the roadtrip towards the nation’s capital, hoping to be captured there. Once, he mastered himself long enough to telephone for help. It was a few more days before the authorities caught up with the pair. They couldn’t have subdued the demon without the boy’s help.

What really happened between their arrest in 2002 and the demon’s “execution” in 2009, we’ll never know.

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The setting-and-character generation session is still a week away, so this is how I exercise my creative energy (and exorcise my obsession).

I’ve just finished re-reading the Annotated Sorcerer, the re-issue of the Sorcerer rulebook complete with the author’s extensive observations and comments on 15+ years of play (his and ours) and discussion on The Forge forums. It’s a great resource. I still wish Ron Edwards had updated or rewritten the rulebook, because finding the definitive version of a rule requires perusing both the original text and the nearby notations. But the annotations taken together comprise a master class in running/playing Sorcerer, and in Forge-style play. Valuable, fascinating reading.

Since our game’s scenario will be based on the characters’ kickers, this (re-reading the rulebooks, and finding sorcerous tales in pop culture and current events) is the only “prep” that I can do.